22 Silly Reasons Why Your CV WILL Get Rejected

First impressions count, especially when it comes to a job application.

Studies suggest that you have roughly 5-7 seconds to impress a recruiter with a top-notch CV OR to completely repel them.

But if I’m honest, CV rejection often occurs much more quickly than this (like within 2 seconds)…

It’s not because we’re all evil hard-noses that aren’t willing to give you a chance. It’s because there are certain things that give an immediately bad impression and when you’re sifting through hundreds of CVs, you can (and must) be fickle.

This week, to help you out, I have compiled my top 22 reasons why your CV might get rejected and how to address them.

Rejected CV: 1. A Ridiculous Email Address

You might be wondering how your CV could possibly get rejected within 2 seconds.

It happens! Many jobseekers sabotage themselves at the very top of their CV, in their ‘personal details’ section with an embarrassing, silly email address.

It takes 5 minutes to set up a ‘professional sounding’ email address via Hotmail, Yahoo, Google or any of the other free email providers or you can usually just link a new address to your current account!

Here are some of my favourites…

“ilostmybabies@yahoo.co.uk”

“hazzaBABE2002@hotmail.co.uk”

“sexyandiknowit@yahoo.co.uk”

These ridiculous (and sometimes shocking) email addresses give us an instant negative impression of the candidate.

It would be such a shame if you missed out on the perfect position because of your ‘hilariously funny’ email address?

Rejected CV: 4. A Candidate Picture

marin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This may be something that is acceptable on the continent, but including a headshot on your CV in the UK might cause some amusement to the recruiter, but will probably just get your CV one step closer to the ‘no’ pile.

Unless the line of work requires that you have the right image, i.e. acting or modelling, then there’s just no need.

A candidate (should) will be judged on their ability to do the job based on skill, work history and education not because they have a nice smile.

Rejected CV: 5. Other Formatting Fumbles

There is nothing worse than seeing a CV on screen or paper and spending ages trying to decipher where each section starts and ends.

Poor formatting won’t just turn a recruiter off, it could also put a candidate at a real disadvantage when it comes to job boards – some of them struggle to even display incorrectly formatted documents.

Rejected CV: 21. Lack of Contact Details

Believe me; it can be infuriating is when you find a really good candidate, only to discover that they’ve misspelt their email address or put the wrong phone number, making it impossible to contact them.

Anthony Hughes

Anthony is a recruitment veteran of 18 years and is also one of the original founders of Coburg Banks. He now trains recruitment consultants on the best methods to utilise when sourcing and assessing applicants for their clients.